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What is the 2020 Google ranking weight for EMD (exact matching domains)
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I know EMD's ranking factor have been significantly reduced in the past decade, but do you think it can help at all in 2020?
Thanks,
Ryan
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Hi Ryan,
In my experience EDMs have their place where keywords have low Difficulty scores (less than 30). To test this in 2017 I launched a domain for my UX Design agency using the URL: https://ux-design.agency/
We're tracking the keywords in Moz since 2017 and you can see the Moz chart here.
At this time we have 26 keywords on page 1 for our EDM and similar variants. I think in this specific case another benefit has been that 3rd party authority websites that do want to link with just the URL, result in links that contain the target keyword text. You can see this in the last couple of months where we have won some awards and the resultant links have improved the organic positions.
Lastly, I have seen this not work on more competitive search terms.
Hope that helps
Peter
I think the success of this strategy
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Hi Ryan,
In 2019 already, EMD domains didn't help at all. I wouldn't expect that this will help you rank better.
Google also said it almost 3 years ago (well it was John Mueller, not Google in its resources): Exact Match Domains Don't Get Magic Ranking Bonus.My advice to you is that you focus on creating good content and help it with good user experience. Some topic related backlinks could probably help.
Don't leave out of sight what your competitors are doing and their overall site and SEO performance on that searches.Hope it helps,
Best luck.
Gaston
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